Day 636

They'd never seen the sun in their town - the mountains were too steep.

Days were a handful of hours long in the summer and winter brought night for months.

Fairly common for the uppermost northern communities.

The isolation, less so.

They never spoke, they'd never been taught how to.

Almost twelve generations had gone past since the last people spoke in their town.

Substitute language came and went in trends, varying between sign language and morse code.

The current trend was glow in the dark gloves to help them speak in the depths of winter.

Everyone understood why there would be no verbal speech - it was crucial to their survival.

It was taken to the point where vocal cords were removed in infants.

The only reason was their company.

In the depths of those mountains, far below the surface was a town to twin their own.

This town was, in some ways, an exact mirror of the one on the surface.

It had the same kind of shops though the stock was very different and subterranean based.

Same with the townsfolk that were so similar to humans but so very not.

They were what humans could have been if their ancestors were bats or moles, not ape-like.

They could hear everything the town above did without ever leaving the cave.

From their viewpoint the town above had vanished overnight to be replaced with wild animals.

The surface dwellers did everything they could to maintain this illusion.

Ever since the underground town had been discovered, their mirror-town had tried to remain hidden.

From the way they moved to the way they walked, everything was done to make the town vanish.

They didn't know if the people underground knew they were still a town or not.

Better to play it safe.

All the while never seeing the large black eyes that peered in at them from their windows in awe.